No Myth
 
INTRODUCTION

First, let's talk about the seed of the fiction you'll be creating.

You were put into suspended animation. Technically, you were clinically dead. Then you were revived, brought back to life. 

There was no magic here. Your blood was drained and replaced with a coolant, to preserve your body. If it hadn't been done just right, you would have never came back.

Your team was a contingency against global disaster. You were supposed to survive, and rebuild.

 But you didn't expect this, a land of mutants and... things. Hieronymus Bosch on LSD could not have dreamed up this place, a land populated by giant mantises with the faces of human children and sapient chords of sound.

 To those that live in this world, your civilization is barely a legend. But you can show them that you are No Myth.

Next, we'll talk about how you'll be creating that fiction.  

 The game is designed to facilitate a No Myth style of play. The premise, and the reason it's called No Myth, is this: nothing you haven't said to the group exists. You, in this case, is anyone at the table, especially as a game of No Myth does not have a GM. The duties of a GM in a traditional RPG will be divided between everyone at the table.

Now, there are a few facts established by this text, but we've tried to keep them to a minimum. And there are procedures and choices to make, in essence to make it easier to get started and to keep going.

The game focuses on sandbox-style play, where the player characters have a lot of options and can explore at will. This style is associated with "old school" play and a lot of GM prep, and the goal here is to allow sandbox play without quite as much preparation.

TWO QUESTIONS

Before the game begins the group needs to answer two important questions.

What apocalypse was your group designed as a contingency against ? Nuclear war? Global socioeconomic collapse? The end of the world's fossil fuel supply? Alien invasion?

 What your characters were expecting has a lot of effect on what they'll have available to them at the start of the game. It is very important to note that whatever they were expecting, that isn't what happened. In fact, at the start of the game, no one knows what actually happened.

What is the world like now?  In broad strokes, and focused on the area outside the player character's bunker. Twisted jungles under a guttering red sun? Rusted urban ruins as far as the eye can see? Vast wastelands dotted with mysterious crystalline structures?

CHARACTERS AND SITUATION

This game is for three to five players.

Each player controls a single character, a unique Role. Only one of each Role may be in play at a time. The Roles are:

●	The Brain: Maybe you're a techie, a scientist, a doctor, or all three. But the reality you're used to, and the technology needed to support it, is mostly gone. Any way you slice it, you have a lot to learn.
●	The Face: Social reality is your only reality. But can you handle the "people" out there?
●	The Fist: You used violence to oppose what was wrong. But everything in this world seems wrong... What happened here?
●	The Guide: You're native to this time and place, but you've attached yourself to the group. Can you be trusted? How alien are you?
●	The Head: You were supposed to be in charge. You have access to things the others do not. But does that matter anymore?

Each player also controls a Situation, a part of the world, and the NPCs associated with it, if any. Each Situation has a ban. Players with the banned Roles should probably not control that Situation, though it's up to you.

●	The Apes: So, it turns out there humans left, though their society has been twisted by this new world. Can the player characters help them find their way? Ban: Brain, Face.
●	The Awakened: What sort of sapient beings exist in this world? How do they react to the player characters? You decide. Ban: Face, Guide.
●	The Bunker: This is the player character's home base. Are they the only ones awake, or are there others? Will the bunker shelter them through the coming storm? Ban: Head, Face.
●	The End: You control a great secret: What really happened to the world. You get to interject hints as the game goes on, no matter how strange or contradictory. You might not even know yourself what the secret is, to start. Ban: Fist, Brain
●	The Map: You are the land. Plants, animals, weather, the very air. The laws of physics, twisted though they may have become. Don't think you don't get to play anything with a personality. Something is broken about the world, and it has a will all its own. Ban: Brain, Guide.

Three of the five situations must always be in play: the Awakened, the Bunker, and the Map. 

When a Situation is not in play, another Situation makes its decisions, but doesn't get to use any of the missing Situation's special abilities. When the End is not in play, those sorts of decisions are made by the Map. When no one controls the Apes, human cultures, if any, fall under the Awakened. Alternately, the Bunker can take either additional responsibility, but not both.

BASIC PLAY

Take turns framing scenes. Each scene you frame must contain your character, your Situation, or both. Describe what's going on and what happens in the first five seconds.

Roleplay in a freeform manner. Each player can introduce NPCs as appropriate for their Situation, or ask others to play NPCs. The scene framer can also ask that bit roles be played.

When you invoke a special, game-mechanical ability of your Role, hold up your right hand, When you do the same for your Situation, hold up your left hand.

At some point, something in the scene will come to a head. A conflict will break out. Roll a die (d6) to pick a player. That player becomes the lead for the scene, and gains temporary control of all the Situations in the scene. That player decides the result of any conflict.

Any player whose Situation has been temporarily usurped can challenge the rulings of the lead as it relates to that Situation. Each player rolls 2d6. Higher total wins. On the first such challenge in a scene, the original Situation owner wins ties. After that, the lead wins all ties.